Miscellaneous

Online MBA: Pursue Your Management Course from wherever you are!

In any organisation the management/manager always attempt to create the best combination of resources so that they can be quick and effective in creating and utilizing any opportunity and grab a big fat market share. So the strength of any organisation lies in its management and that is exactly why management graduates from premium institutions are most sought after in any business environment.

Online MBA:Institutes offer their management master degrees on many names like Post graduate diploma, master of management and master of business among which MBA is well known. Institutes usually offer these courses on regular basis, but since last decade the trend has changed substantially. As more and more working class people are aspiring to enroll for management studies, and as they are in no place to spare their time to attend direct contact (Regular) courses and advancement in information technology gave rise to online management programs, in short Online MBA. The ability to attend classes from anywhere is one of the innumerable reasons why more and more institutes are rolling out online MBA programs along with their traditional MBA offerings.

Benefits:Enrolling for an online MBA will benefit in three ways; firstly, we don’t have to go through the stringent and toughest admission procedures, secondly, we don’t have to stay in residential campus and attend classes daily, means we can stay where we are and do our jobs, and thirdly, purpose will be fulfilled; means we will get the certificates having value on par with the regular course.

Types of online MBA: Online education programs are offered in two modules, one for executives and the other for non-executives.

Executive:MBA programs are quite expensive usually cost about 6-17 lakhs, and are being offered by many of countries top management institutes. They are particularly targeted towards candidates currently holding mid level management cadre positions with experience ranging from 2-6 years.

Some of the prominent institutes offering executive MBA are:

Indian Institute of Management Ahmadabad

Indian Institute of Management Kolkata

Indian Institute of Management Lucknow

Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode

Indian Institute of Management Trichy

XLRI- Xavier school of Management

Institute of Management Technology

Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences

Except BITS, all above institutes offer Post graduate programs in Management which is considered equivalent to MBA course. Most of these institutes ask for CAT/GMAT score for admission.

Non-executive:Non-executive management programs are more popular because they are affordable (under 1 lakh), not targeted towards a particular class and offer same benefits as regular MBA’s.

Institutes offering Non-executive MBA Courses in India:

Pondicherry central university

Symbiosis University

Amity University

National Institute of Business Management

Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS)

MIT School of distance education

Mumbai University

Institute of Professional studies

Jaipur national University

ITM University

Acharya Nagarjuna University

Institute of Management Technology (IMT)

Lovely Professional University (LPU) etc.

Specializations:Typically online MBA lasts for two years, with an option to complete in four years overall, otherwise the enrollment shall deem to be cancelled. In general, institutes offer all major specializations including Finance, Marketing, And Human resources etc.

All the above institutes offer courses on open learning platform model, in which preloaded online classes are made available to the candidates. Some institutes require candidates to be present for special live classes, for convenience they are usually scheduled on weekends (holidays).

Unlike all other universities, Mumbai University award management program as M. Com with specializations in Accounting and Management. Apart from that, it also offers post graduate diploma in financial management which lasts for one year.

MIT, LPU, IMT, NMIMS, Symbiosis and Amity University offers Post graduates diplomas/programs along with MBAs. Among all, MIT and Amity University courses are most diverse in nature;

MIT offers one year diploma in Retail management, and one year post graduate diploma in telecommunication management, wealth management, Material management, Supply chain Management, risk and insurance management and energy management. It also offers two years PGDBA in supply chain management.

Usually colleges don’t allow distance graduates for their campus recruitment drives, but some colleges conduct special recruitment drives for off-contact students.

Admissions procedure:As there are no pre-requisites (usually) except holding a bachelor degree, enrolling in online management courses is quite easy. Not all, but some (like IIMs) institutes require CAT/GMAT scores for admission. Depending on the university, admissions can be seasonal (Dec & June) or annual (June). Usually they are annual and may ask candidates to sit for the screening examination or may not ask (Pondicherry University). They follow same semester pattern like regular MBAs involving both internal and external assessments.

International Universities:After all it is online course, so, we can attend classes from anywhere in the world. According to financial time’s 2016 ranking, here is the list of some of the world’s best universities offering online MBA:

IE Business School (Spain) topped the list.Based in UK:

Imperial college of London

University of Bradford

University of Leicester

Durham University

University of Birmingham

University of Liverpool

University of Edinburgh

University of Warwick

Based in USA:

University of Southern California

Carnegie Mellon University

University of New Hampshire

California state university

Pennsylvania State University

Ohio University

University of Massachusetts

University of Maryland

Indiana University

Purdue University

University of Miami

University of Minnesota

University of Texas-Dallas

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Eligibility criteria for these universities varied with great degree, although one must be certified in English language proficiency test (TOFEL/IELTS) for admission. Depending on the university, type of degree and number of modules fee structure varies, but for 2 years MBA program it costs from $8,000 to $ 25, 000.

Career:It is quite natural to doubt the validity of these courses with regular ones. As far as executive MBAs are concerned, because of institute’s reputation and stringent curricula they are valued on par with the regular courses. But non-executive (general) courses from other institutes are not always considered as equivalent to regular courses, particularly in PSU’s, where one need to have a regular degree to appear for the recruitment process. Apart from PSU’s no one questions the validity of online degrees as long as they are approved by the Directorate of Distance Education. Central and Sate government recruitment and promotion policies doesn’t discriminate between regular and online degrees. Private organisations usually prefer regular degrees but if you are knowledged enough, mode of your degree won’t degrade your chances of getting a job. Recently, a US survey revealed that most of the corporate recruiters are open to accept candidates with online degrees as long as they posses required knowledge. So, online degrees are considerably helpful for both domestic and international job seekers.